visionary - Cornea Research Foundation of America

Cornea Research Foundation of America
9002 N. Meridian Street, Ste. 212 • Indianapolis, IN 46260
317.844.5610 • www.cornea.org
V I S I O N A R Y
NON PROFIT ORG.
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Cornea Research Foundation of America - Bringing Vision to Future Generations
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Indianapolis, IN
Permit No. 5677
Special Events Committee Holds First Meeting
March 2007
On the morning after our first major snow storm in February,
three women braved slippery road conditions and met at the offices
of Price Vision Group; a fourth attended by telephone from Cherry
Valley, Illinois. The purpose of the first meeting of the newly formed
Special Events Committee was to begin planning events to celebrate
the Foundation’s 20th anniversary in 2008. The group will meet every
other month between now and December.
The committee is composed of five members: Pat Chastain,
Pat Cowan, Ruth Hubner, Rae Hostetler (of Hostetler Public
Relations) and Elaine Voci, Development Director of the Foundation. Small, but creative, the group has already identified a list of ideas that sound like fun. The Foundation will mark its
special anniversary through events that allow it to give back to the community as well as events to create awareness of
the Foundation’s achievements, goals, and vision for the future. The mission of the Foundation is to give people back
the use of their eyes through applied research. Four pillars support the Foundation: research, innovation, service to
humanity, and education of doctors and patients.
The group photo shows (left to right) Ruth Hubner, Pat Chastain of Indianapolis, Rae Hostetler, Pat Cowan of Illinois,
and Elaine Voci. If you are interested in joining the committee, please contact Elaine at 317-814-2993 or by email at
elainevoci@cornea.org
Foundation News Announcements
ASK THE DOCTOR
In each newsletter, Dr. Price answers questions that patients have written him, or asked him about in
person during an appointment. If you have a question you would like Dr. Price to answer, please forward
it to elainevoci@cornea.org or mail it to Elaine Voci at the address shown on the newsletter.
Q: How long are iris implants expected to last?
A: They should last indefinitely. In some cases where the lenses are sutured, the sutures may degrade and
need to be replaced in 10 to 20 years, depending on the patient’s age. At this point in time, it is difficult
Dr. Francis Price, Jr. to determine the percentage of people with artificial irises for whom this could be an issue one day, but
it is likely to be a low number.
Q: I have a damaged left Cornea, due to Herpes Simplex Keratitis. I developed the condition at about the age of
10 and have had periodic flare ups which have left a scar on my cornea. My doctor has discussed the possibility of a
cornea transplant in the future should my scar get worse. My question is: at what point do you decide to do a transplant?
A: The problem with corneal scars from Herpes Simplex infections is that the infection can recur. If it does recur, then the
inflammation can return, even in the new transplanted tissue, leading to immunologic graft rejection, or melting of the tissue.
We do not recommend grafting corneal scars from Herpes Simplex unless there have been no recurrences for at least a year.
When we do graft eyes with these scars, we also place patients on oral antiviral medications indefinitely, as this minimizes the
severity and frequency of recurrent infections.
5625CornNewsltrMar07.indd 1
We are pleased to announce that Marianne Price, Ph.D., Director of Research and Education at the Foundation, has been appointed to the Research Committee of the Eye Bank Association of America (EBAA). Dr. Price will join the committee when
they meet this spring at the EBAA Annual Meeting. Congratulations!
Elaine Voci, Ph.D., Development Director for the Foundation, has been elected to the Board of the Indiana Chapter of the
Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and attended her first Board meeting in January 2007. She is serving on the
Public Relations sub-committee this year. Congratulations!
In This Issue
Dr. Price Named an Indiana Hero
Calendar
Advanced Cornea Course
Special Events Committee On November 24, 2006, the day after Thanksgiving, Dr. Price was
recognized by the Indiana Pacers team as an “Indiana Hero” and was
Holds First Meeting
presented with a beautiful ribbon-adorned medal that you can see him
Foundation News
wearing in this photo. This award is given to individuals in the community
Announcements
who are making a significant difference in the lives of others. Not only were
he and his family guests of the Pacers that night, but the Pacers won the
Dr. Price Named an
game! Congratulations, Dr. Price!
Indiana Hero
Once offered only a few times a year, this highly interactive two-day training course is now
From The Research Corner being conducted once a month due to increased demand. It features a new surgical technique for
corneal transplantation known as DSEK. Doctors from some of the most prominent eye centers
Words From The Heart
in the United States, and elsewhere outside the country, have come to Indianapolis to take part
in this advanced training course which includes live surgery and wetlab. For more information,
Ask the Doctor
contact Wendy Mickler at 317-814-2823. (See related feature under Words from the Heart in
this issue.)
3/19/07 9:53:10 AM
Cornea Research
Foundation of America
Fellowship Program Now In Its 18th Year
Francis W. Price, Jr., M.D.
President
When visiting the clinic of Price Vision Group, you have walked by a row of photographs
lining one of the walls leading to the check-out area. These are individuals who have studied with Dr. Price in a unique medical education program called “fellowships” that have been
offered over the past eighteen years.
F.W. (Bill) Grube
Vice President
Fellows learn corneal and anterior segment procedures, refractive surgery including LASIK and
corneal transplants, such as the newest DSEK technique.
Pat Chastain
Secretary
They also learn key practice management skills including marketing, insurance, and patient flow
logistics, for example, that are essential to those considering entering private practice or clinic
management.
Board of Directors
Walter C. Gross, Jr.
Treasurer
Harry W. Scheid
David C. Huse
Michael W. Dickerson
Trischa L. Zorn
Jerry D. Semler
Johnston Erwin
Foundation Staff
Marianne O. Price, Ph.D.
Director of Research & Education
Elaine L. Voci, Ph.D.
Development Director
Clorissa D. Quillin
Clinical Research Coordinator
Sara Dugdale, B.S.N., R.N.
Clinical Research Nurse
www.cornea.org
Tuesday,
June 19, 2007
Because Dr. Price’s clinic is a busy one, and often presents difficult cases to be treated, fellows
find an abundance of clinical experiences that expose them to leading edge surgical procedures
not available in fellowships offered elsewhere. Upon completion of the one-year program, it is
expected that fellows will be well-rounded, confident and resourceful, as well as fully prepared to
successfully manage their own medical practices.
For more information about the Fellowship program, contact Wendy Mickler
at (317) 814- 2823 or by email at wendymickler@pricevisiongroup.com
Calendar
December 7-10, 2006
Drs. Price attended the 2nd International Congress of Corneal Cross Linking,
Zurich, Switzerland.
January 12-19, 2007
Drs. Price attended the Hawaiian Eye Conference and Subspecialty Day,
in Kauai, Hawaii, where Dr. Francis Price presented information on laser-assisted transplants.
Save the Date! Sunday, March 18, 2007
OPEN HOUSE at Price Vision Group, from 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM.
Drs. Price described updates on the newest corneal research studies underway at the Foundation;
the next Open House will be in October 2007. Check the calendar in the September issue of
Visionary for more details.
April 27- 28, 2007
Indiana Lions State Convention, Marriot Hotel, Downtown Indianapolis
Cornea Research Foundation will have a table in the exhibit hall, and Elaine Voci will present
a workshop entitled, “Celebration of Light.” For more information, contact Terry Stauffer at
bstauffer@ameritech.net
April 28, 2007
2nd Annual Vision Expo, Indiana State Library from 10 am – 4 pm.
Food vendors, keynote speakers, displays of products and services from computer software to
games and kitchen gadgets. For more information, contact program coordinator Carole Rose at
(800) 622-4970 or at crose@statelib.lib.in.us
10th ANNUA L G O L F C L A S S I C
Annual golf outing to be held at Bent Tree Golf Course in Westfield, IN. Featuring box
lunches, putting contest, shotgun start at 1:00 PM, fabulous prizes for the Silent Auction and
valuable merchandise certificates awarded to the four leading foursomes, hole in one, closest
to the pin, and longest drive. For more information, contact Elaine Voci at 317-814-2993.
5625CornNewsltrMar07.indd 2
FROM THE RESEARCH CORNER
In 1905, a European doctor first showed that when the clear window of the eye, the cornea, becomes cloudy it can be replaced with a donor cornea to restore vision. Over the next 100 years,
cornea transplants became the most common and most successful type of solid tissue transplant!
Marianne Price, Ph.D.
Just over a year ago, we helped advance corneal transplantation into the 21st century by
becoming the first site in the world to use a high-speed laser to create interlocking transplant
designs. Six patients agreed to participate in our initial feasibility study, and their results have
been very exciting. These patients were able to get their sutures out in approximately half the
normal period of time because their laser-contoured transplants healed so much faster.
We now offer laser-contoured grafts to all of our transplant patients and have helped teach many other doctors about it.
The laser is extremely precise and allows us to customize the transplant shape to best treat the type of corneal problem
each person has. Our sincere thanks go to the patients who kindly agreed to help us pioneer this improved procedure!
Words From The Heart
This letter is from one of the many doctors who come to Indiana to study with Dr. Price to learn a new small incision corneal
transplant technique, known as DSEK, in the Advanced Cornea Course. Dr. Cremona is from Argentina in South America and,
in this letter, expresses his heartfelt appreciation for what he has learned. For more information on the monthly course or to register,
please contact Wendy Mickler at 317- 814- 2823, or you may download a registration form on the website of the Foundation,
www.cornea.org
Dear Dr. Price, Jr. and Dr. Marianne Price,
I am writing this letter to express my gratitude to you. As you know, my English is not as good as I wish, but I will try to do
my best writing because I really need to tell you how this experience has changed my practice.
It is almost a year ago that I took your Advanced Cornea Course in Indiana and I think that the progress I made in your
technique (to me, it is yours) is enormous. You can not imagine the sensation, it’s like starting again. I am so excited that
sometimes I cannot sleep! I have performed many DSEKs, of course not as many as you, and every case is a new challenge that
keeps me thinking about this new Corneal Revolution.
I think you cannot realize what you are doing for our specialty is something that can not be described only in words. As I told
you, this is a Revolution and thank God you are one of the illuminated doctors that made this happen. But what I will never
forget is the way you are; it is very difficult to find people that want to share their knowledge with colleagues. What you have
is a gift and that is the desire to spread the knowledge beyond barriers. For example, only a person like you would send a paper
that is not yet published to another colleague; for me it was like having gold in my hands.
My son, who is in the Wills Eye Hospital doing his Fellowship, told me that every time they talk about DSEK, your name
comes up; it is like an association. Now he can realize the importance of the course that we went to a year ago in Indianapolis,
and he wants to thank you for it, too.
From my behalf, I want to thank you for all you did and are doing for me (answering my questions, sending information, accepting the invitation to the Argentinean Congress), also, all my patients want to thank you for developing this technique and
improving their quality of life. I hope I see you soon.
Sincerely,
Dr. Gustavo Cremona
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Did You Know?
In a recent study* reported in Ocular Surgery News, vision disorders among Americans aged 40 and older were noted to have
cost the U.S. economy $35 billion in 2004 and affected 3.6 million Americans. The study suggests that costs are expected to
rise as the population ages and as medical discoveries lead to greater utilization of medical care.
The top three ways that visual disorders impact the nation’s economy are: direct medical costs, losses in productivity, and direct
expenses such as nursing home care and seeing-eye dogs for the blind. Vision disorders included in the study were vision impairment, blindness, glaucoma, refractive error, macular-degeneration, cataracts, retinopathy, and open-angle glaucoma.
* David Rein DB, Zhang P, et al. The economic burden of major adult visual disorders in the United States. Arch Opthalmol. 2006:124;1754-1760
3/19/07 9:53:12 AM